


Reprise

by Jennichi



Category: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-22
Updated: 2004-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-25 05:33:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1634153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jennichi/pseuds/Jennichi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From Wyoming to Bolivia: The loves and worries of that long journey.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	Reprise

**Author's Note:**

> Written for brooklinegirl

 

 

She wasn't certain if she loved them despite their lawlessness or because of it. In her eyes they were just men-- both less than their reputations and greater than them.

She knew she should be grateful for the time they had together, but her mind was filled with images of how it would end. Ever since that premature article detailing their deaths she could see a thousand others just like it, variations on the same dark theme. The world owed her more than this.

* * *

"Etta...! Where are you?"

Etta kept her back to the bed and her eyes on the road below. She held the curtain open with a white-knuckled grip. The moon was only a sliver tonight, but it still caught and reflected off of the fine dust that coated the road. That lone road stretched off into the distance, a trail of faint light in the dark.

Butch made a rough sleep noise and smacked Sundance's arm. "Shut up."

The bed creaked. They had gotten only one room tonight, hoarding money and lying low on this first stage of their journey.

"Etta!"

"I'm right here." She turned.

Sundance squinted. "What the hell are you doing over there?"

"Thinking."

"Well stop it and get back into bed. Can't sleep with him kicking me in the shin every five minutes."

She smiled involuntarily. "All right. Since you put it so nicely."

"Christ!" He rolled over and buried his face in the blankets.

Butch groaned.

She let the curtain fall and the light dimmed. Right foot and then left--careful maneuvers, slow as molasses drizzled over griddle cakes. It was difficult to move quietly in the rickety inn bed. And how many inns did this make? How many nights since she'd left her home?

"You don't deserve me," she told them softly.

Sundance snorted, but his arm around her waist tightened. Butch rolled over and his hair tickled her neck as he laid a slow, sleepy kiss on her collarbone. She fought to clear her mind, and finally slept.

* * *

She was up and perched on the wagon slat four hours later. The sun had risen, but the shadows were still long. Butch was carefully checking over their mass of worldly goods, whistling carelessly as he tugged on the straps. It carried in the still air and Etta felt a slight stirring of unease.

"Slow-rising town," Sundance commented.

She could tell by the tilt of his head that he was considering the possibilities. The wagon dipped and rocked as Butch climbed onto the pile in the back, and she snapped the reins preemptively.

"Hey!" Butch grabbed at the sideboard.

Sundance just looked over at her. He sat on the far end of the slat, the distance enforced by her voluminous skirts. "You're in a hurry."

"All right, what was that about?" Butch complained from behind. "You've been jumpy since yesterday."

"I want to get into Douglas by tonight," she replied. "No sense wasting time."

"Wasting, she says. Sundance, you think we've been wasting time?"

There was a pause. "I think the nag isn't liking this pace."

Etta pulled back viciously and the mare screamed her displeasure. Butch shoved her skirts aside and snatched the reins from her hands before she had a chance to turn and retort. But she'd been expecting it. The one thing Sundance hated was a mistreated horse--it was just bad sense. His face was tight.

Butch was a solid presence behind her, with his hands clamped onto her shoulders. He must've climbed over the pile of luggage to reach her. She wasn't certain if she should be reassured or not, for his grip was tight to the point of pain. She didn't chance taking her eyes off of Sundance to check.

"You're in an awful big hurry, Etta," he repeated. "Something you want to tell us?"

"I saw a white hat yesterday. It wasn't Lefors," she hastened to add, "but it reminded me that they're right behind us."

Butch's charming smile flashed on. "What, _right_ behind us? They sure must be moving fast--I can't even see them."

There were times when she thought that smile should be bottled and sold as the best medicine in all of Wyoming. She hadn't been the only one on edge, she realized. There'd been tension in the lines of Butch's face before that smile, and Sundance had been too relaxed. He'd been poised to move, to shoot. Now they all breathed carefully, consciously fighting the fear. Her bleak mood of the past several days began to loosen its hold, but the certainty remained: this would be their last holiday.

"That's 'cause your eye-sight is failing you, old man," Sundance told him. "I told you it was time to get some bifocals."

"Now that there is called projecting."

"Projecting?"

"I read it in last month's gazette. News lent it to me. Now see, there's a doctor in Europe and he says when you discover a weakness in yourself you 'project' it onto your friends. It's a kind of denial."

"Hm."

"Been shooting the left wings off the flies instead of the right lately?"

"Hm."

"Boy, you _do_ talk too much."

"Everyone's got a bad habit."

They boarded the Pacific Union at Douglas, and she felt every rotation of its mighty wheels. _Kchank. Kchank. Kchunk._ Away. Away. Away.

Money was spent freely now as they moved ever eastwards. It was a holiday like none she had ever imagined, something cribbed from the gossip columns of a big-city paper. They were enjoying themselves, and she wondered where the desperate intensity had gone.

It was bitterly cold in New York. A fitful snow fell every night now--flakes drifting down into the narrow streets and then whirling back up into the sky as they got caught in the cross-drafts. Etta loved those winds. She loved the exhilaration of fighting her way through them while her skirts and shawl flapped wildly.

She was laughing now as she leaned dangerously forward. The gust died and she stumbled, but quickly found her feet again. Sundance had stuffed his expensive new hat into a coat pocket; he needed both hands to keep Butch upright. The taller man leaned heavily on his shoulder and had a tendency to slide.

"Tomorrow!" he shouted above the whistling wind.

"Tomorrow?" Sundance prodded.

"Boat leaves tomorrow!"

Etta laughed.

"Yes," Sundance agreed. "And you'll see that Bolivia's a damn stupid idea."

"Or, I was thinking, we could go to Mr. E. H. Harriman and say: 'I'm sorry'. 'S good manners."

"It's a good plan."

"Yeah?"

"Shooting yourself in the head would be quicker."

"Hey! Do what they least expect, outwit them..."

"You just keep thinking, Butch. That's what you're good at."

* * *

Another inn, this one much finer than the nameless and dusty place she had suddenly remembered from the beginning of their journey. It seemed half a world away. They 'd been in New York for three months now, from early fall to mid-winter, and she felt a vague unease creeping up on her.

Three months was pushing the infamous Butch Cassidy luck. She'd be relieved when their ship sailed, but right now she was simply happy to be inside and away from the chill.

Butch was sprawled on the bed where Sundance had dumped him. Their bed, she noted through the happy fuzz of her inebriation. Apparently Sundance's charity hadn't extended to toting his friend next door to his own room. Butch lay with his arm thrown over his face to keep the light out of his eyes. His breathing was slow and even, but Etta doubted he'd fallen completely asleep.

"And where are we going to sleep?" she asked Sundance curiously.

He was busy plunging his head into the washbasin, and she winced in empathy as he shivered.

"Right on top of the lazy lout." He sat down on the opposite side of the bed and reached out to her. "Come here."

"Now wait a minute," Butch complained without lifting his arm. "I didn't make _you_ watch."

Feeling light-headed and mischievous, Etta began to crawl over him on her way to Sundance. A knee found its way into his gut and he sat up with a groan. "We've got to work on your bed-side manner."

She paused, and Sundance lunged. He overbalanced when she slid out of the way, and ended up falling into Butch. Small curses and low laughter escaped the pile of blankets and limbs. It was like that insane snow fight... how many years ago had that been? Another tangle of bare limbs and white. She had watched from the door and shouted encouragement as they wrestled.

Naturally, Butch had caught a terrible cold, and that particular insane stunt had never been repeated.

This mock-fight was relatively gentle, both men were mindful of her just in range of a wild foot or elbow. Etta leaned back against the headboard, reclining like Cleopatra and watching from beneath lowered lids. Her handsome men were worth an appreciative glance or two.

Butch lunged up to block a knee aiming for his solar plexus, and foreheads met with a solid _thunk_. They crumpled, groaning. Sundance lay as he fell, a firm layer of warmth across Butch, with his head buried in the crook of the other man's shoulder. Etta cradled Butch's out-flung hand, playing with his long fingers, so she felt the jolt that went through his body and nearly ripped it from her grip.

Sundance had lifted his head just enough that his breath ghosted across the other man's ear. Both were frozen, and she could see the surprise and calculation in Butch's eyes at his own reaction.

"You have an idea, don't you?"

Butch twitched with each word. "Yes?" he said cautiously.

Sundance tilted his head to glance up at Etta. "You've got common sense, teacher lady. What do you think?"

"Oh, yes," she breathed.

He sat up abruptly. "All right then."

Clothing didn't take long. There was something to be said for one-track minds.

Etta was very pleased that she had made Butch help her earlier to wriggle out of the latest fashionable strangulation contraption. She now worked on rolling off her stockings while she watched their rare dance out of the corner of her eye. 'Dance' being a relative term, for although they were grace itself when they rode, neither man was able to do more than swing a partner around in the town square. Sex didn't seem to cause them as many inhibitions.

She couldn't say she was surprised when Sundance took control with his usual pushiness. God, how she hated it when he waved his derringer in her face! Well, mostly hated it.... Now he took control and then stopped, devious as ever. He held himself still, and Etta wished she could see the look in his face as he stared down at Butch. Butch strained beneath him, first contact. They both shuddered.

Smooth and natural, one rising to meet the other, touch and withdraw, then touch again. Etta could almost feel the heat of the friction herself, better than anything her body could produce by itself in the dark of a solitary night. This was the sort of thing no proper school teacher should be watching. ...This was why she was no proper school teacher. As every second stretched out her eyes were drawn to the minutiae--the way Sundance's arms trembled from the strain of hovering motionless. The way his hips dipped just a little more each time Butch thrust up. The rhythm as the muscles up and down his back flexed. And Butch, how his fingers clutched at Sundance's biceps as his feet twisted for purchase in the sheets.

Harsh, fast breaths in the near-silent room, and when had hers sped up as well?

It would be soon, she knew, and sure enough Butch began to curse quietly as he writhed. It seemed cruel to watch him trying to reach the man above, trying so hard to get the contact that his body demanded without any help from his partner. At last, Sundance began to move in the slow, purposeful way that she knew so well. It never failed to drive her crazy, bastard that he was.

Sweat trailed down past her temple and beaded on her upper lip. She licked it out of the way, hands already busy teasing herself toward the edge. She matched her rhythm to Sundance's and called it a masochistic impulse.

And--oh! At last he lost the beat, turning it into a desperate assault, trying to crawl into and through Butch. Etta lost sight of them as her own body demanded attention. Her muscles tensed tighter, tighter.

God! So perfect....

* * *

"What about a ranch then?" It was a desperate suggestion; she knew she couldn't win tonight.

Fate had caught up with her men at last.

She watched them and she watched the shadows they cast on the rocks around their campsite. They were solid figures in the flickering light, not a hint of despair. They would go to their execution laughing. Butch would make some wisecrack and Sundance would smile his non-smile and then they would hang.

No! She saw it enough in her dreams, she wouldn't see it in her waking mind as well. Her fears had returned, exacerbated by every successful and near-disastrous robbery. She embraced the anger she had thought abandoned in Wyoming. It had only been buried, deep. Anything was better than this quiet hopelessness.

"I might go back ahead of you."

"You mean home?"

"I was thinking of it."

"Whatever you want, Et."

"Maybe I'll go.... "

Whatever you want, they said. So calmly, so coolly. Maybe it wasn't courage, after all. Maybe she wasn't the only coward.

"I'll go then."

\-------------------------------------

I hope your holidays are wonderful, Brooklinegirl!

 


End file.
